Timeline for How do proponents of the Fine Tuning argument for God, refute the puddle comparison?
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| S Feb 2, 2023 at 14:24 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S Feb 2, 2023 at 14:24 | comment | added | Ken Graham♦ | Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Christianity Meta, or in Christianity Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. | |
| Feb 2, 2023 at 14:21 | comment | added | chasly - supports Monica | ... I see no evidence for the God of the Bible except for some words in texts from thousands of years ago. I understand some people's motivation for believing - primarily the fear of mortality and a hope that the future will be good and under control. Tempting as that is, as a way to deal with life's vicissitudes, I prefer to feel good for more logical reasons. | |
| Feb 2, 2023 at 14:21 | comment | added | chasly - supports Monica | @Mike Borden - Yes, that is the most convincing argument against solipsism. But I am not a solipsist, I am an agnostic. I believe the world is real but I don't know it. I take your point about intellect versus spirit, however we mustn't leave out psychology. Confirmation bias ensures that we will find evidence for our beliefs everywhere and ignore the contradictions ... | |
| Feb 2, 2023 at 14:07 | comment | added | chasly - supports Monica | @Psionman - Yes it does, but "I" is just a linguistic convenience. Another possibility would be "the experiencer" but that takes a lot longer to type. In any case I think there probably are other people - I just can't prove it. | |
| Feb 2, 2023 at 14:02 | comment | added | Mike Borden | You believe that you cannot know if the world actually exists outside of your own mind but you behave as though it does? Can't you test that by making pink unicorns suddenly appear? If you can do it then your belief might be true. If you can't do it then either your belief is wrong or you can't control your own mind (which might indicate that you are somebody else's dream and not actually real). I promise that if you desire to know at the expense of all else, and call on the name of the Lord, you can know that God is true. It's not an intellectual exercise but a spiritual rebirth. | |
| Feb 2, 2023 at 7:35 | comment | added | Psionman | But "sum" implies "I" (Lets leave god(s) out of it) | |
| Feb 2, 2023 at 1:54 | comment | added | chasly - supports Monica | @Psionman - I don't claim cogito, I claim sum. I happen to believe that cogito exists but I might be wrong. For me sum is an ephemeral phenomenon, renewed from instant to instant. Incidentally, I am not a proponent of solipsism - I don't care either way whether it is true. With regard to the God of Abraham, I see him as no more or less likely to exist than Odin or Zeus. If there is a creator, I doubt he/it got up to the tricks described in the Bible. | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 23:55 | comment | added | Psionman | " I profess to know nothing for certain except for my own existence" - How can you know that for certain? See refutations of cogito | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 19:17 | comment | added | Matthew | "Where is this written?" In 1 Peter 3:15: "always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you". I, and others, believe that necessarily includes being able to defend God's existence (Romans 1:20 notwithstanding!). Otherwise it would not be a very good defense! | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 19:03 | comment | added | chasly - supports Monica | @Matthew - No-one can prove that pink unicorns don't exist. If you have evidence against their existence, what is it? I can't prove that God doesn't exist for a similar reason. I have no idea whether the Christian God exists or whether some other form of god created us or none at all. I don't mind what others believe. I am interested though that you are called to defend your faith. Where is this written? | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 18:57 | comment | added | chasly - supports Monica | @Mike Borden - I don't know who I am sharing it with. For all I know, I am God and the entire world is simply a dream I'm having. I don't know whether you exist - I only know that I exist. The point is that I am a pragmatist. Although I don't know if the world exists, I behave as though it does. | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 15:45 | comment | added | Matthew | BTW, the Anthropic Principle is absolutely correct. The problem is rather that if physical constants were different, no one would be around to observe their effect. Therefore, the problem of explaining why we are here remains. The usual claim that there are infinite (or at least many) universes — that something "tried and tried again" until our universe happened along by pure chance — merely begs the question, and has no non-philosophical justification. Nor does it explain why conditions are remarkably well-suited for life rather than marginal. | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 15:40 | comment | added | Matthew | Christians aren't called to have blind faith. We're called to not only use our God-given rationality, but to be able to give a defense of our faith. It would be irrational to believe in pink unicorns if there is substantial evidence against their existence. Of course, the caricature of Christians as gullible idiots is quite popular among scoffers... (Everyone knows that real unicorns, or at least their living relatives — some debate here whether they qualify as the same animal — are gray.) | |
| Feb 1, 2023 at 12:55 | comment | added | Mike Borden | "I profess to know nothing for certain except for my own existence". With whom are you sharing this information? I think believers have an instinctive expectation that their faith should reconcile with science but, oftentimes, the limitations of science are misunderstood and so the reconciliation attempts assume the flavor of justification. | |
| S Feb 1, 2023 at 11:05 | review | First answers | |||
| Feb 1, 2023 at 21:42 | |||||
| S Feb 1, 2023 at 11:05 | history | edited | chasly - supports Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 1, 2023 at 1:26 | history | edited | chasly - supports Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| S Feb 1, 2023 at 1:20 | review | First answers | |||
| Feb 1, 2023 at 1:44 | |||||
| S Feb 1, 2023 at 1:20 | history | answered | chasly - supports Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |